Determination of cadmium and zinc in Alzheimer's brain tissue using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

In this work, brain tissue was taken from Alzheimer's Disease (AD) subjects ( n=11), ‘normal’ subjects ( n=10) and from subjects with senile involutive cortical changes (SICC) ( n=6). Concentrations of Cd and Zn were determined in all samples, using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The brain tissue was selected and obtained from the Netherlands Brain Bank. Samples were taken in each case, from both hemispheres of the superior frontal gyrus, the superior parietal gyrus, the medial temporal gyrus, the hippocampus and the thalamus of the same brain. Cd which is known to have no essential role in the brain was found to follow, as expected, a lognormal distribution of concentrations in ‘normal’ subjects (Shapiro–Wilk's test (0.98) ( p